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BG4 | COVER STORY
BUSINESS GUARDIAN www.guardian.co.tt NOVEMBER 2013 • WEEK TWO
More than a year after retiring
as the chief executive of
Scotiabank T&T Ltd,
Richard Young is back in
the world of business.
This time it is in the capacity of chairman
of the Economic Diversification Board (EDB)
which falls under the Ministry of Planning.
Young, who assumed the position in July,
said he intends to use the skills from his bank-
ing background in his new position.
"Banking is sometimes not a very sexy thing.
It is all about implementation and details. So
I would like to use some of those skills to
ensure that the plans we have are implemented.
There are some areas I want the EDB to be
involved in and one of those would be a source
of financing for entrepreneurs," he told the
Business Guardian last Friday.
One of his ideas is to create a private equity
fund for bigger businesses.
"It is not an original thing. I am mindful
there is a committee set up by the Central
Bank looking at capital markets for small and
medium enterprises (SMEs). I have had con-
versations with them. The EDB s role is to try
to create collaboration and to get the fund
going," Young said.
He has spoken to former colleagues in the
banking sector who have "expressed interest"
in the idea.
"It will be a substantial fund where we will
lend to established businesses to expand or
use the secondary stock exchange where we
have not been very successful in getting com-
panies into. Maybe we can use that avenue,
but that is in the conceptual stage still and I
am doing research on it," he said.
He said there really is no other major insti-
tution providing this financial service.
"There are a couple smaller services that
provide funding. There are angel investors,
but they are low profile and that is a purely
private arrangement. So the equity fund is
something I would like to explore and to create
one," he said.
The second idea Young has, which is still
in its "embryonic stage," is a mutual fund for
smaller entrepreneurs.
"The idea is for this to lend to the SMEs.
Many times the smaller players do not like a
major investor coming in. The small business
owner thinks they might be taken over. The
mutual fund will have ownership in the busi-
ness. We have to create the infrastructure to
do the credit adjudication and assess the busi-
ness.
"Then at the later stage, once the owner is
ready to exit that arrangement, they can take
the units that we lent to them and they can
have it redeemed. So once you repay, the value
Wants to create equity
funding for large businesses
raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt
RAPHAEL JOHN_LALL
EDB chairman Richard Young...
Continued on page 5
Richard Young, chairman of the Economic
Diversification Board (EDB)